


The Boy That Music Loved

by Noonabate (GACKTSMUT)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 15:42:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5632027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GACKTSMUT/pseuds/Noonabate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This boy loved music. One day it let him know it loved him back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Boy That Music Loved

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally published on AFF - http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/497083/the-boy-that-music-loved-exo-chanyeol 
> 
> This sort-of fantasy/speculative fanfic was written with this specific playlist in mind. You can read this fic to this playlist, or make up your own : -) Many of the songs included here are way old, because I really think Chanyeol is the type of music lover who explores different musical eras and gets a kick out of discovering new old songs, all the while reacting in that huge derpy way that he always does. 
> 
> "The Boy That Music Loved"  
> 1\. "Do You Belive In Magic?" - The Lovin' Spoonful ( http://youtu.be/mDYNuD4CwlI )  
> 2\. "Beat On the Brat" - Ramones ( http://youtu.be/aPvkzQmc68Y )  
> 3\. "Respect" - Aretha Franklin ( http://youtu.be/6FOUqQt3Kg0 )  
> 4\. "Oh Oh I Love Her So" - Ramones ( http://youtu.be/f8HxnhD4c6k )  
> 5\. "Tears Are Cool" - Teenage Fanclub ( http://youtu.be/megRiqCbpyw )  
> 6\. "DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love" - Usher feat. Pitbull ( http://youtu.be/C-dvTjK_07c )  
> 7\. "Always" - Rilo Kiley ( http://youtu.be/P49daSSXv8k )  
> 8\. "Farewell Adventureland" - Yo La Tengo ( http://youtu.be/q7QFmmkU3JE )

Park Chanyeol was a boy who loved music. He fucking LOVED it. His parents liked to tell the story of how he could sing before he could talk, and how he could play “ABC” on the piano before he could read the alphabet. Chanyeol fell asleep every night with his earphones plugged into his ears. He knew more about music than the rest of the boys in EXO, but he never showed off and he never held himself above them for knowing who The Clash was in the pantheon of rock music. He never sneered at anybody’s music taste. Chanyeol loved music of all kinds – he dug everything. Two of his greatest fears were of him losing his hearing and to die not having heard every single album ever recorded. 

He considered himself super lucky to be in the position he was in and working in the music industry. How many people were able to have their dream job? He went through the audition process because he knew how challenging it would be. He could have started a band of his own, but somehow the thought of pushing his own limits as a performer appealed to his competitive nature. He knew he could do it and that he could do it well. He liked a good challenge.

On days off, he would seek out more new music. He’d go to shows, check out some clubs, talk to some musicians he was friends with just to talk shop. He attended free concerts at the College of Music, usually where there were less younger people who might recognize him. It was one way to forget for a short while the pressures of being an idol, and to simply come back to the main reason why he did what he did. For Music.

There was a small music store by the Han River that he started frequenting. It was not a chain music store, but an independently run shop. It was almost always empty, and carried LP’s and old 45’s. No CD’s, and definitely none of their albums. Chanyeol knew. He checked. It made him laugh and clap, like most things that he found genuinely funny made him do. He liked the shop, so he kept going there.

The shop had an old time booth for listening to records. He started picking out records and listening to them, and the shopkeeper never complained about his not purchasing anything. Chanyeol could swear that the shopkeeper encouraged his habit by leaving out records for him to discover every time he dropped by.  
Today it was the Ramones Leave Home. He knew about the Ramones, of course, and he was in the mood to hear this record. As he walked to the record booth, he realized that someone else was already occupying it and singing another Ramones song, “Beat On the Brat” very badly. He approached with caution and saw this girl bobbing her head, with her eyes closed, and dancing by herself in the small, tight booth. He couldn’t see her face, but she was wearing Wayfarers and a blazer with shoulder pads like it was still 1987. He stood there, watching her and listening and he found himself alternately covering his mouth and clapping. The sight of this strange noona made him laugh.

The dancing noona stopped dancing and removed the headphones from her ears, turned around and saw Chanyeol standing outside the listening booth. Instead of looking embarrassed at having been caught at a private moment, she flashed him a wide smile. There was nothing nervous or tentative about that smile. It was the kind of warm smile an old friend would give, a smile that genuinely showed him how glad she was seeing him. Chanyeol felt goose bumps rise over his arms. She was so pretty! And she was smiling at him as if she knew really knew him, not just recognized, but actually knew. He blushed.

“You found me,” she said waving. She slid open the door to the listening booth and slipped out. 

***

“Hi,” Chanyeol said back. “Um…do I know you from somewhere?” He didn’t mean to be rude. He only wanted to know where this pretty noona knew him from. Was she his teacher? Impossible. He would have remembered her if she had been. Had he been looking for her? Maybe she mistook him for someone else?

Pretty noona shook her head and gave him a “Don’t be silly” look. “Oh, Chanyeol,” she said. “You know me from everywhere.” And before the poor boy could react to that, she leaned across and planted a kiss on the side of his mouth. Her lips sent a strange thrill through Chanyeol’s body. It was the same feeling he got whenever he heard his favorite song unexpectedly coming up on the radio. He wanted to break out into a dance right then and there.

“Okay, noona,” he said, not being able to wipe the smile that was now taking his mouth over. Is she a fan of ours? He tried to think if he had seen her outside of the SM building like their regular fans. Again, he would have remembered her had he seen her. Those shoulder pads were impossible to miss.

“You’re getting so big and handsome now!” the noona said, mirroring Chanyeol’s stock reaction as she bounced on her heels and clapped her hands. She stood up on her tiptoes and ruffled his hair. “I like your hair like this, bambino,” she said, using the Italian word for little boy. Nobody Chanyeol knew used words like that, but the sound of it was vaguely familiar.

Chanyeol gestured for the noona to come closer. “Um…noona,” he said. “Please…I’m very sorry, but…what is your name?”

Noona laughed and to Chanyeol’s ears it sounded like the horn section blaring at the beginning of Aretha Franklin’s “Respect”. He wondered why he thought of that just now. “You know it,” she said, not even sounding impatient. “But if it makes you feel better, you can call me…” her eyes scanned the shop around them for the word she was looking for. She reached for his hand, the one that was clasping the Ramones Leave Home LP and lifted it up to her face. “You can call me Deedee.” She laughed. “He was always my favorite, God rest his soul.” And she made the sign of the cross. “Or, you know, Noona is fine too.” She pulled him back into the listening booth. “Let’s listen to ‘Pinhead’!”

Chanyeol let himself be dragged into the tight space with Noona. It was a tight fit, but they fit. He didn’t know why, but Chanyeol felt safe around her. He trusted her. On some level, he knew she was right – that he did know her. Noona plunked down the earphones over Chanyeol’s head and put the needle to the record. Chanyeol decided not to worry about that for the time being and just let go as “Oh Oh, I Love Her So” tore through the headphones. 

***  
They listened to the entire A side of Ramones Leave Home with both of them flailing their arms and jumping around in the limited space of the listening booth. When Chanyeol closed his eyes, he could still see Noona smiling and swaying from side to side. Her hair smelled like apples and her skin smelled like baby soap. Half the time he wanted to pull her close and give her a big hug. The other half wanted to pick her up and start swinging her around. God, she had an awful voice, but to his ears it sounded like birds chirping in the springtime.

“I’m thirsty,” she said, grabbing his hand again and pulling him out of the booth, out of the shop. “Buy me a drink, Park Chanyeol!” He let himself be dragged by the hand by this bossy noona he felt was his bestfriend after listening to one side of a punk rock record. At this point, he was ready to marry her had she asked, but a large Wintermelon milk tea was what she wanted at the moment.

“So, Park Chanyeol,” she said, poking her straw through the plastic lid. “How are you?”

“Me? I’m okay,” he said, paying the ahjumma at the counter. “The group’s getting along better than ever, we’re booked solid with schedules everyday, everything’s great. Just great.” They sat together at the back of the tea shop.

Noona looked at him with sympathetic eyes. She touched the side of his face. “Park Chanyeol,” she said, sighing. “Promise me you’ll take better care of yourself. You’re too thin. You could use a couple more hours of sleep. Are they feeding you well?”

Chanyeol wanted to climb into Noona’s lap with the way she touched his face. He missed his mom. He missed his sister. He missed his dog. He missed his elementary school classmates and his pre-school teacher. He missed his barber. “Noona…” he said, his voice cracking. _You’re not gonna cry. You’re not gonna cry. You’re not gonna cry._

Chanyeol started to cry. He started to cry like a little boy, huge fat tears rolling down his cheeks before he could will them to stop. Noona held his hand, not saying a word. She let him cry. He needed to. He was crying because this was the first time in weeks that he was able to walk around on his own, that he had some time to himself, that he had time to think. Now that he was by himself, the tears wouldn’t stop coming. He wasn’t sad, but he realized that this was the first time in weeks he was able to feel anything other than tired. He cried because it felt good to. His breath came out in gasps, and he was trying his hardest not to start bawling. He let his tears fall silently, not bothering to wipe them from his cheeks. Noona was humming under her breath as she patted his shoulder and back. It was a song he had never heard before but to his surprise, he was singing along to it in his head, the words “tears are cool” echoing in his mind. It calmed him down to hear it, and it calmed him down to feel her touching his back, drawing the sobs out from his body.

“Poor baby,” she said as Chanyeol squeezed out the last of his tears. _Aaaaahhhh, damn but did that feel so good!_ Noona tilted Chanyeol’s face toward hers with her finger and looked into his tear-streaked face. It was funny, but he didn’t feel ashamed he had let her see him cry. He felt as though this was not the first time she had seen him cry, and that it was okay. And that even if he did cry some more in front of her, she wouldn’t judge him. He was done for the moment, having wrung out his tears for the last couple of months. His chest felt lighter, his shoulders less stiff.

Noona leaned her face closer to Chayeol’s and pressed her lips to where his tears left their trail, kissing her way up to his lashes. When she was done with one side, she did the same thing on the other. He didn’t know it was possible for someone to kiss your eyes like that, but that’s what she did. She touched the tip of his nose with her finger. “Nyerp,” she said, crossing her eyes at him, making him laugh.

They sat in silence for a while. Chanyeol reached for one of her hands, and she let him hold her hand underneath the table. “Okay,” she said, as if answering a question Chanyeol wasn’t sure he’d asked out loud. It answered the one he’d been thinking, though. Very weird, but then again, weird things kept happening since he saw this girl. “I’ll be your girlfriend today, Park Chanyeol.”

“Really?” he said. He was so happy, he couldn’t control his face. He knew he was making one of his giant derp faces right now. He stared at her, and tried to guess how old she was. She looked young, but she felt older.

“I’m old, Chanyeol,” she said. “And not in the way you’re thinking.” She wiggled her fingers in front of his face. “But yeah, pretty old.”

“I don’t care,” he said, not blinking. “You’re an angel.”

“Sometimes I can be the devil too,” she said. “but not today for you.” 

***  
They snuck into a bar for more loud music. Chanyeol pulled his hoodie over his head and hoped for the best. If their manager could see him now, he would blow a vein and get a heart attack and a stroke at the same time. Right now, he just wanted to move his body and dance –not the kind he did for a living onstage, but the kind of dancing one did when one was alone in one’s bedroom, in one’s underwear. It was packed in the club, and he kept his Noona close to his body. He could feel her heat through her clothes, and he was sure she could feel his through his clothes.

Something was happening and the atmosphere around them felt like it had switched channels to the high hundreds, where you thought no other channels existed. It felt like an unknown channel had appeared before his eyes after endless surfing. It felt like manually turning a radio dial to the far left and finding an alien shortwave signal. It felt like accidentally adding one letter to a familiar URL and coming across a free porn site with porn you didn’t know turned you on.  
She looked so sexy to him all of a sudden. He didn’t want to be her best friend anymore. He didn’t want her to hold his hand or rub his back while he sobbed like a baby. He didn’t want to just hold hands with her anymore. He wanted to pin her against the brick wall at the back of the club and fuck her standing up. He wanted to reach up under that short skirt she was wearing, and pull her panties aside.

“Naughty little wolf,” she said, pulling him to where he wanted to be. He hadn’t said anything, but she knew. Before long, they were outside and he was doing all those things he’d only been thinking minutes before. With his knee between her legs, she let him kiss her, gently at first, without tongue or teeth. His lips were so soft against hers. She felt like water on his mouth, and tasted heady, like some strange sort of liquor. His kisses were almost innocent, but when he found her wet and ready, his fingers told her a different story. “Young men are always like this,” he heard her say, sighing into his hair. “Always.”

With her tongue on his, she taught him a new song. Her hands on his hips taught him a new dance. Her touch felt impatient to him, but he knew she was toying with him and taking her time. She pushed down his shorts to his knees and stopped kissing him to appraise her work. She grabbed hold of him, making him jerk and twitch into her hand. “Those tube socks drive me crazy, pup,” he heard her say before he pushed into her.

Some years ago, Chanyeol joined a modeling talent contest and he’d played his guitar for the talent portion. She felt like that guitar right now, pressed like this against his body. He could feel her trembling under his touch, her whole body pushing back against him felt like the surge of a giant power chord through an amplifier set to eleven, and he could feel the crash of a hi-hat, the shot of a snare, the hit of the bass drum– it was crazy. He didn’t dare stop when she commanded he keep going, and the climb felt like it could go higher forever, until they crashed into each other like feedback, gasping for air. 

***  


Chanyeol knew exactly who she was now, only he didn’t dare say. He was standing on the edge of a dream, the most beautiful, unbelievable, perfect dream. The moment he recognized her for what she was, he knew he would lose her and everything that was real would come rushing back in. It was already happening, but he was powerless to stop it. He knew he might never see her like this again, not for a long time, maybe not forever. Then again, he might. One could never be too sure. The world was a surprising place, full of secrets and little independent music shops and punk rock records waiting to be discovered. Anything was possible for Park Chanyeol and boys like him who loved music. 

They walked hand in hand along the Han River. The moon was so full, and he felt like howling. “I don’t want to let you go,” he said.

“I’m always with you,” she said. “I’m with you everyday.”

“That’s true,” he said. “You know what I mean.”

She did.

“You make me feel alive,” he said. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You already have, my wonderful boy,” she said. “You’re mine. I’ve had you since day one, and I can’t be happier or more proud. You’ll grow up to do so much more, believe me and I can’t wait for that day. But you’re perfect now. You’re perfect for this time. Don’t doubt what you can do, because I never have.”

Chanyeol’s tears were falling again. “I love you so much sometimes it hurts.”

“It’s still a good hurt, right?” He nodded. “You know when it becomes a bad hurt, you can go away for a while and I won’t be mad. I can wait. I’ll always be here for you, even when you get tired of me.”

“I’ll never get tired of you,” he promised. “You have my heart.”

She was already fading in front of his eyes. “Thank you for loving me, Park Chanyeol,” she said, kissing the top of his sticky-out ears, the ones that he used to listen to her everyday. How she loved them dearly and gratefully.

He accepted her kisses but made no other move to touch her. When he lifted his head and opened his eyes, all he saw in front of him was the full moon’s reflection on the surface of the Han River, glittering to its own strange and silent music.

THE END.


End file.
